Tehran, (CHN Foreign Desk) -- The cultural heritage, with its multifarious origins and as a receptacle of memory, embodies the symbolic value of cultural identities and constitutes a fundamental reference for structuring society. The various components of the physical heritage are powerful symbols and the tangible manifestation of the diversity of peoples, cultures and beliefs that coexist or have existed successively in a single region.

 

For this reason UNESCO is pursuing its standard-setting action and is continuing to devise such instruments as may provide effective protection for the cultural heritage as a whole. Its operational action is helping to make governments, the private sector and civil society as a whole aware that the cultural heritage is not only an instrument for peace and reconciliation, but also a factor in development.

 

In order to implement this plan, cultural diversity should be protected through safeguarding of sites and monuments in which the cultural identities of the people who built them are expressed and encourage the resumption of inter-community dialogue through the joint safeguarding of all relevant parts of the heritage in pre- and post-conflict situations. Moreover, raising the awareness among Member States, encouraging and helping them to safeguard and promote their intangible cultural heritage, mainly through the implementation of the "Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" are seen necessary by UNESCO in protecting cultural diversity through preservation of cultural heritage.

 

Promotion and dissemination of the traditional and popular music of the world, as well as the reinforcement of the Endangered Languages project in line with the implementation of the UNESCO Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity; promoting the existing standard-setting instruments by providing expert advice on becoming party to and implementing these instruments (1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols; 1970 Convention on Illicit Traffic; 1995 UNIDROIT Convention; 2001 Convention on the Underwater Cultural Heritage), and on elaborating national legislation, developing a new international instrument on the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage play an important role in the realization of this goal.

 

In order to provide optimum protection for cultural diversity, activities must concentrate on sites in which many different cultural identities find expression, those that are representative of the cultural heritage of minorities and those that are of fundamental value or are particularly representative of diverse cultural identities, especially in places where they are most seriously in danger of disappearing.

 

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Source: UNESCO